I heard a joke last week where someone said, “It only rained twice this summer, once for twenty days and then for thirty days.” I’m beginning to think that’s how it will be this summer. It’s July now and we’re still waiting for the weather to warm up and dry out a little. Not too much, just enough to slow the grass and weeds down and make the tomatoes happy.
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| The garden lush from all the rain. |
We had a fun week. With Rachel, Hazel, and June here, and then Sarah and Tosh arriving on Wednesday and Tabor on Thursday, things were pretty festive. We played games, some went fishing, worked on jigsaw puzzles, ate a lot of good food, and mostly we just enjoyed being together. Rachel always undertakes a project when she comes to visit us. This time she went to work on our wood pile. She and her crew made a new wood pile closer to the house. It turned out great.
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| Grandma reading to Hazel to get her to nap. |
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| Working on a jigsaw puzzle. |
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| Working on the new wood pile. |
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| The finished wood pile. |
We checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to rain on the 4th of July, so we moved our celebration up a day to Friday. The celebration, at least the first part, the food part, was at our house. We spent the morning getting the food and the yard ready. I mowed the lawn. Hannah set up the croquet court. We put out tables and chairs. I started a fire in the fire pit to get a nice bed of coals ready for roasting hot dogs and ‘smores. Indoors Sarah prepared some delicious treats – a lemon-lime sorbet, and a fabulous tart called an apple frangipane made with apples and almond cream in a flaky crust. Rachel made a pistachio salad.
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| Friday afternoon. |
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| Getting set up for the festivities. |
At 6:30 everyone gathered under the maple trees for the feast. We had hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings. The Shilligs brought pasta salads, cherry lemonade, and the makings for ‘smores. Our senior missionary couple, Elder and Sister Miller, arrived with a delicious potato salad. It was all so good. We sat and ate and talked and then ate some more. When it started to get dark, we moved the party over to Shillig’s yard where we had sparklers and fireworks.
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| Sarah bring June to the party. |
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| Hazel's festive hairdo. |
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| Stacey with Hazel and June. |
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| Croquet on the front lawn. |
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| Chatting around the fire. |
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| Sparklers at Shillig's house. |
I’m thankful to be a citizen of this great nation, the greatest nation the world has ever known. I’m thankful for the wise men who, from their great knowledge and hard experience, established a government founded on principles of liberty and freedom. Our nation has come a long way since then and in many ways we’ve strayed far from the original intentions of those wise men. I wish we could hit some sort of political reset button and return to the principles they established. So many in our nation don’t know much about its origins, the sacrifices made for the cause of our freedom, or what our founders sought to do when they met to create a new form of government. Many people don’t know, and many don’t really care. When freedom is misunderstood and taken for granted, when people begin to believe their freedom is really something granted to them by government rather than a God-given right, it becomes easy for those freedoms to be eroded and erased. We are still a free country, or at least freer than many other countries, but we are not, I think, as free as we should be. I don’t think we’ve turned out the way our founder fathers envisioned. As we sat in the dark and watched fireworks on Friday night, we sang “God Bless America” and as we sang I felt a surge of patriotism tinged with fear and regret and thought, “Please bless us. We need it now more than ever.”
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| Fireworks at Shillig's house. |
Saturday morning, the 4th of July, we woke to rain. It rained off and on all day. We were glad we celebrated early.
Right after church today we are driving up to Palmyra with a picnic lunch to visit Josiah. He was a little sad that he wouldn't be here to see everyone, so we are all going up to see him. It seems like he’s having a great time on the work crew. The pageant starts this Friday and they will be very busy finishing the preparations and starting rehearsals. After we visit with Josiah, we are going to the church history sites. Tosh has never been to them. From the Hill Cumorah (where Josiah is) we’ll go to the Smith farm, the Sacred Grove, the Grandin Press, and take a walk on the Temple grounds. We probably won’t get home until late. That’s why I’m sending this Journal early, before church.
Things will get sadder and quieter over the next few days as Sarah and Tosh and Rachel and Tabor and their girls leave us. I’m leaving on Thursday to take a short trip to Utah. My cousin Rick will be ordained a high priest next Sunday and he has asked me to do the ordination. I will get to spend Friday and Saturday with Geoffrey and Joni and their adorable girls. Daniel is driving up from St. George to be with us. I’ll spend Sunday with Rick and Melony and then fly home on Monday. Since I’ll be gone, next week’s Journal will be a few days late.
I hope you had a great Independence Day. God bless America!
